Drawing inspiration

At the beginning of the year I told myself I was going to draw something every day. I haven't done so well on that account; it's sometimes hard to make the time, and I often find myself uninspired. What to draw?

Recently I was surfing the Net for that very purpose and came across the Urban Sketchers Web site. It's exactly what I needed. It reminds me that very ordinary things are worth drawing, and look somehow not so ordinary when rendered as a drawing.

That evening I went to Spill the Wine restaurant with my husband, and when he left the table for a few minutes, I took out a piece of paper and pencil from my purse (yes, I do carry around a small envelope/pocket of paper and a pen or pencil everywhere!), and drew the parking meter in the snowbank outside the window, incorporating the branches from a tree across the street.

Earlier that same day, I was supposed to meet a friend at a coffee shop, and got my signals crossed, so I was waiting for her at Anodyne while she was waiting for me at Nokomis Beach. While I was sorry for my screw-up, I did take the time to do a drawing of the view outside their windows, and a person sitting there. (I want to practice drawing people more, but I don't want the people I am drawing to catch me in the act!) I have to admit, I find fewer things to draw at Nokomis Beach, even though it's my neighborhood coffee shop and I spend more time there than at any other coffee shop. I may have to resort to doing more people drawings there (discreetly, of course).


 Other than a couple of drawings done this past week for the spring MOQ, which is almost done, I still haven't done a lot of drawing, But maybe I'll change my goal to spending some time drawing every week, rather than every day.

I may have to frequent a variety of coffee shops in order to find more things to draw -- but sometimes we just have to sacrifice for our art!

Shanty art town

On Saturday, Craig and I went to the Art Shanty Projects on Medicine Lake, just 20 minutes northwest of Minneapolis. It's a site-specific art happening that takes place over four weekends in January and February, right out on the ice. Modeled after the ice fishing houses that dot Minnesota lakes in winter, these are artist-made constructions, each having its own specific function. Some, like the Science Shanty, are educational (when we visited, an ecologist was explaining about water quality and what's happening with the water under the ice under all those shanties), and all are interactive in some way.

I was excited to encounter the ArtPost Shanty, an actual post office on the ice, with flag, even, to let you know it's a post office. They had run out of the artist-designed postcards that were made just for this year's installation (they had printed 500, they said they would print 1000 next year), but they had supplies for making your own postcards, and since it was a week before Valentine's Day, that occasion was the theme, of course. There were several different hand-carved rubber stamps with heart motifs of one kind or another, and so I just grabbed a red card and stamped away, then addressed it to myself, bought a commemorative stamp to put on it, and left it with them to be mailed. They'll bring it to the Long Lake Post Office, which has a special cancellation just for the Art Shanty Projects. How cool is that? If I had known, I would have brought the addresses of a few of my art buddies and mailed postcards to them too. Next year, I'll be sure to do that.

I also visited the Art Swap Shanty, where I brought a handbound blank book I had made a long time ago, and traded it for an offbeat thingy made from a Dixie cup. It had a tiny drawing attached to one side with thumb tacks, and some loopy wire sticking out of the top like an antenna. I can go look on the Art Swap Shanty's blog to see who, if anybody, selected my contribution. They take a picture of you with the thing you brought, holding a sign that says "I brought," and then another picture with the thing you selected and a sign that says "I Got." When I looked at the pictures later, I noticed that were a lot of kids participating, and one kid was clutching something with his "I Brought" sign that could have been my Dixie cup (his mitten hid most of it). It's a pretty fun concept. What I liked about the Dixie cup thing that I got was that it was creatively quirky and not just a drawing. I added it to my car's dashboard gallery of found objects.

Craig wrote about our visit for the spring issue of MOQ, which will come out in March, so I won't go on any more about it. But I will say that I was glad I finally got out to see them, it was really great, and I will definitely do it again next year (with my address book!)

A little bit of spring in my kitchen window

I used to think that Groundhog Day simply meant that there may be only six more weeks of winter, if we're lucky. No St. Patrick's Day blizzard to weigh us down in the middle of March? Sounds good to me!

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the second of February could mark the beginning of spring weather somewhere, provided that skittish fellow didn't see his shadow on that fateful day. Spring in February? What a concept!

And one of those harbingers of spring, wherever it is that they get that heartwarming season so early, are the wild yellow primulas that brighten wet, shady places along the streambanks in the woodlands. Maybe that's why I get a craving for these cheery flowers about this time every year. My mother's birthday is January 29, so I've taken to buying a yellow primula for her birthday, and then a second one for myself. This year I also picked up a couple of parsley plants and chives, to capture something of the flavor of spring, as well.

I'm also reacting a little to the preponderance of reds and pinks in the color schemes of both Christmas and Valentine's Day -- I want some yellow as an antidote to all that! (I do like pink and red, I just get tired of them!)

So, happy post-Groundhog Day to all, and here's a bit of a harbinger of things to come . . . eventually!

Winter walking meditation

I just got back from a brief trip to Seattle, where the sidewalks are always clear and you can walk at any pace you like without fear of slipping on the ice. Walking outdoors in Minneapolis this time of year is different. It's more like walking meditation.

Walking on city sidewalks in winter requires mindful attention to each step. Even so, you may be placing your foot down with intention, and suddenly it slides out in front of you and down you go on one knee, like a medieval knight before his liege. Except nobody will dub you Sir anything. And somehow, when I have done that this winter, I have managed to go down on my bad knee, the one that doesn't want to bend more than 90 degrees. The fall forces a sharp bend in the knee and soon after, that poor abused joint swells up and is stiff for a few days.

After the second such occurrence this winter, I decided to give up on our city sidewalks until spring. So it was a treat to be in Seattle for a few days and walk around freely outdoors. The mild temperatures (in the 40s and low 50s) were just a bonus, it's the relief of walking on nonslippery sidewalks that meant the most to me.

Bird ornaments

These sparrows, puffed up against the cold, like to gather in my neighbor's lilac bushes by the alley. I'm sure they hang out there all year round -- I often hear their chatter amidst the leaves in summer, but can't see them. Now that the branches are bare, the birds stand out like kinetic ornaments.

Gifted

My sister-in-law made her usual cheese ball this Christmas, and packaged it very nicely in a basket with some crackers to go with it, After I put the food away, I set the basket aside to decide what to do with it later. Silly me. Obviously, the basket is a present for my cat Spot. Of course it is; and she did not hesitate to claim it (even though I don't think she really fits, do you?).

It sure would be easy to capture a cat: just put out a cozy basket or box (or paper grocery bag on its side) and wait for one to come along and sit in it. They can't resist!

The way to travel

I'm at Kopplin's coffee shop in St. Paul, and the owner, Andrew Kopplin, is talking to the people next to me, and my ears prick up when I hear him talking about a recent trip to Europe -- to Norway, as it happens, by way of Iceland. I had to look up and say something, mostly to be transparent about the fact that I was listening (it's a crowded little coffee shop, with tables close together, so it's not like I could have avoided hearing the conversation next to me), and to acknowledge that his tip sounded like a really good idea -- to have a planned layover in Iceland that allows enough time to get out and visit the hot springs. Having endured a flight of 6 or 7 hours to Brussels recently, with our only layover at the Manchester airport (not much to do there besides being shuttled about from one terminal to another), I wanted to make a note of his advice for future reference, because I would like to go again, and I've long been curious about Iceland anyway.

He was saying that the break and the hot springs really helped to not only break up the time you're sitting in an airplane into more manageable segments of a few hours each leg, but also to allow his system to adjust to the time change.

"And they have great coffee," he added -- and he would know, being the owner of pretty much inarguably the best coffee shop in the Twin Cities. But I'll admit I have a certain bias in favor of any European coffee already (no surprise there).

[I borrowed the image of a map of Iceland  from answers.com, but decided not to put a link here because the site has so many ads it's rather a pain to download!]

Thanksgiving bouquet

We've had a weird fall here, weatherwise. It was cold and wet in October, and it's been unusually warm and sunny in November. No complaint there! Apparently this confused my yarrow into blooming again, albeit sparsely, so when I took the dog for a walk as the turkey was roasting this afternoon, I noticed the blossoms and thought, hey, I could collect a little bouquet from my garden for the table, and on Thanksgiving Day no less. So I picked some yarrow, along with some sprigs from the spirea bush that were still hanging onto their leaves, a couple of small hydrangea heads, and part of a fir branch I picked up in the alley on my way back from the walk. Altogether, a nice little autumnal bouquet. It's not often I can do that in late November in Minnesota!

Bee Brains

I'm something of a bee geek. I collect interesting facts about bees with the intention that I'll put together a bee zine someday -- a compendium of bee trivia, serialized. If I ever get around to it! In the meantime, perhaps I'll share bits and pieces of my "collection" on this compendium.

So here's something I came across today on Science News: a new study that concludes that African-European hybrid honeybees (aka "killer bees") aren't as smart as European honeybees. The study gauged bee IQ by offering them a whiff of Jasmine scent followed by a little sugar water. When the researchers proffered a second whiff of Jasmine, more of the European bees were quick to stick out their tongues in anticipation of the sweet stuff than did the Afro-Euro bees.

This is apparently a standard measure of bee smarts, and since the killer bees have been taking over territory formerly forgaged by European bees, the researchers expected to find out that they were the smarter ones. Now they're somewhat at a loss for what to make of these unexpected results.

It seems to me that the scientists need to read some of Howard Gardener's writings on multiple intellgiences! Maybe those killer bees are smarter, and they're just not impressed with that whole scent-followed-by-sugar-water trick. They could be smarter in a different way than the scent/sugar test measures.

Bye-bye Jack, and Jack, and Jack

In truth, I put the jack-o-lanterns in the compost about 2 weeks ago, but finally got around to taking a picture of them yesterday. They look so forlorn, don't they?

I needed a photo to go with an article about hugelkultur. And I just got a kick out of their sad little shrinking faces. The middle one, pictured again on the article page, is Nora's, which she carved Anime-style; but now she says it looks like an old lady.

Interesting coincidence that I should have gardening on my mind today -- I just got my first seed catalog in the mail! That's got to be the earliest I've ever gotten one. It's from Pinetree Seeds, one of my favorites for offering lots of variety, little or no hype, and modest prices. I'm already circling things I want to grow, and no doubt my wish list will outgrow my available space in no time.

The Philosopher Mailman and Poetry Journal

My regular mailman is George, a nice fellow probably in his 30s who, I'm told by my friend who's also a mailman, is stridently liberal and is consigned to sort his mail every morning next to the local post office's only conservative, a mousy fellow who listens to talk radio on his headphones as he delivers the mail. So George's day often gets off to a lively start; but my house is near the end of his route and he seems to be in a good mood by the time he comes to my block.

This is an interesting contrast from Dave, my former mailman, who was the local branch's other right-leaning carrier (according to my friend, who used to stand next to Dave to sort mail). After the 2008 election, we didn't see Dave for a few days. My husband speculated that he was sitting in a dark room, staring at a picture of Sarah Palin. Dave went AWOL for a few weeks this winter, and then called in his resignation. For several weeks after that we had no regular carrier and our mail arrived at a different time most days, often after 5 p.m., as the post office parcelled out Dave's former route in pieces to carriers who already had a full route of their own to deliver.

I like a certain degree of predictability with my mail, whether I'm expecting a freelance check, some mail art, or the Poetry Journal I seldom get around to reading; and I like to know the name of the person who brings my mail, if for no other reason than because that person knows something about me and my reading habits. So one day last spring I grumbled to my husband that I wished the post office would give me a mailman. He gave me that look and said, "No, dear. You can't have a mailman."

Well, now I do, in a manner of speaking, and he's a nice, dependable fellow. On George's regular day off, our mail is usually brought by Tim, one of the few other mailmen I know by name. Tim sometimes takes a break after he finishes his route early and has an espresso at the local coffee shop, which I also frequent. Tim has a master's degree in philosophy, leans well left of center politically, and is a bit of an intellectual eccentric. He's friendly enough, but I'm often not sure what sort of topic of conversation I should broach with him, so I usually end up talking about the weather, unfortunately.

One day I was at the post office around 4:30 p.m. or so as Tim was just leaving for the day, he said hello as he came out the door, and added, "I delivered your Poetry Journal today."

That evening after supper I decided to ignore the Sudoku and read Poetry Journal instead.

Can you count to three? Or, the grumpy voter

We voted today in the first Minneapolis election to use instant runoff, or what the City prefers to call ranked choice, voting. They say the term "ranked choice" more accurately describes it. Maybe so, but I suspect it doesn't matter what they call it, just as it doesn't matter how well they design the ballots or how plainly they explain it. Some people hate change almost as much as they hate reading directions, even when those directions are brief, clear, and illustrated.

At least that's what Martin and I observed when we went to the polls today. A woman was at the table unhappily returning her ballot for a new one because she had voted for her three Park Board candidates in one column, even though the ballot clearly indicates that you vote for one candidate in each of the three columns. There are three at-large seats for the Park Board, you see, and so all three were her first choice. The election judge patiently repeated the directions, and the woman said, with a tone of exasperation, "So this ballot is ruined, then?" Not to worry, the official assured her, you can have a new ballot. And they took her mismarked ballot and gave her a new one.

"Who came up with this stupid idea, anyway?" she demanded. The voters, explained the official. "I mean who designed this ballot, it's just stupid," she persisted. Listening to this, I just couldn't imagine any way that the ballot could have been designed that would have been simpler. I wanted to answer, "Someone who can count to three." But I didn't.

Later, as Martin and I were feeding our ballots to the voting machine and collecting our jaunty red "I Voted" stickers, this same grumpy woman also turned in her ballot and then declined a sticker. "I'm not proud to have voted," she grumbled, muttering something again about how stupid it all was.

Don't you just love democracy?

More small stuff

Since I wrote that last post about small but tasty coffees in Belgium, there've been a few little stories inspired by my little coffees (and worth reminding myself before I slide back into old habits -- such as now, sitting at Anodyne with a mug of coffee, which I've just polished off and am about to get a refill!).

I thought that my new preferred drink -- two shots of espresso with a little foamed whole milk in a demitasse (6 oz., actually, which is really just tasse, not so much demi), was the same as a small cappuccino at my local coffee shop, but when I ordered a small cappuccino I got a huge mug, at least 12 or 14 ounces. I thought I had forgotten to say small, but the barrista said, this is a small." After that I would just say, "In the really small cup, I'd like two shots of espresso with a little steamed whole milk, please." Now they're all getting the hang of it and they ask if that's what I want, each one having a different way to summarize it.

One of the baristas, Tony who goes to MCTC (Minneapolis Community and Technical College), commented the first time I requested the drink, "The Italians would be proud." And subsequently, I would come in and he would have the same drink prepared for himself, which he showed me (using the only other small cup -- there are just two, I believe), and tell me that I had gotten him started on drinking it that way, too.

Then, the other Tony (who's in the military but hasn't been deployed anywhere yet, and, frankly, I hope that he remains that way! Maternal me, I suppose.) said, "You could simplify things and just say you want the Stockel special." Which refers to the now-retired mailman, Jeff Stockel, who used to have just such a drink there after he finished his route. Jeff has a teaching degree, and lived in Europe for a time before he came back and found that he couldn't get a teaching job, and so ended up delivering the mail. We have such sophisticated mailmen in my neighborhood -- besides Jeff, there's Vince who's published a book and traveled to Italy with his wife and is now taking Italian classes, and Tim with a master's degree in philosophy (and who also drinks espresso in the small cup).

But I digress; there's more. Another barista, Eva, is of Polish heritage; I often see her mother in the coffee shop when Eva is working, talking to her in Polish. Eva's mother was there one time when I ordered my little beverage, and she said to me, "That's so European." We talked for awhile, and she told me that when she went back to Poland for a visit, she ordered a double cappuccino because she had gotten used to the larger size, and her relatives there said, "That's so American of you."

So, I guess the thread through all of this post is that the joy of going against the norm is that you provoke all sorts of interest. I mean, how often do you order a coffee at your local coffee shop and hear so many little stories and comments in response? And that small is still beautiful, of course.

(The photo is of a demitasse cup I bought at the Magritte Museum in Brussels.)

Small is beautiful

I'm in that post-travel mode where I keep finding myself comparing my home and surroundings to that fairy-tale world of the tourist visiting only the best a place has to offer, knowing full well that if we lived there we would begin to see and experience things in a more down-to-earth, less charmed way. But that's the beauty of travel, isn't it? We don't think about or see things in the same way as we do at home. And how could we? That travel mentality is hardly sustainable, especially on the budget! But I think there are also some things we can take back with us, things we may have learned from other cultures or from the experience of visiting a place with the enthusiasm and curiousity of a tourist, rather than the habits of a resident.

So I do find myself trying to re-create some of the things I enjoyed about our visit to Belgium, and one of those pleasures is coffee. Rediscovering coffee as a pleasureable drink, that is. At home, I had put away the coffee maker more than a year ago, and both hubby and I had taken to drinking tea in the mornings instead. I still enjoy this, although most of my relatives haven't gotten the memo, so we still have a bag of fair-trade coffee someone gave us for Christmas last year, stuck in the freezer, reminding me that I used to make a pot of coffee every day and a half-pound of good coffee like that would not have been around long enough to need storing in the freezer.

I had gotten into the habit of believing that if a mug of coffee (with cream) was a pleasure, then two mugs are twice as pleasant, and so on. Except after the second or third cup of coffee, not only would I get a bit jittery, I also didn't really enjoy it anymore. I didn't really like the taste by the end of the second cup, nor the coffee-mouth feel and breath, nor the knowledge that I had also consumed close to a half cup of cream along with it!

My husband had read in the guide books that in Belgium you drink cafe au lait. Naturally we assumed this would be the milky coffee beverage served in a large bowl-like mug that we know it to be here. But we figured there would be something special about it, and besides, we were in Belgium and wanted to do as the Belgians do. So when we went out to dinner for the first time in Brussels, with my sister, who has lived there for several years and was advising us on the ways of Belgians, I asked for a cafe au lait with my dessert.

That was my first mistake. My sister quietly explained, "Did you see how the waitress looked a little surprised? That's because Belgians don't drink coffee with dessert, they have it after." Ah. I immediately realized this was a lesson in mindfulness: savor the dessert while I am eating it, don't wash it down with coffee; then enjoy the coffee for its own merits.

So she brought us our coffee, and it was not what I expected: a demitasse cup (slightly bigger, actually, probably 6-ounces) of what must have been espresso, with a little container of evaporated whole milk on the side; at least, that was how I decifered the French and Dutch list of ingredients -- it was not thick and syrupy like our condensed milk, which is sweetened, but was more like, well, whole milk, with the fuller body of cream, but without quite as much fat (yet, it was whole milk, not a low-fat version -- the Dutch for that is volle melk, I learned).

I poured the milk into the coffee, took a sip, was surprised at how good it tasted (I expected it to be bitter, but it wasn't). It was served with a little ginger cookie, and a cute little spoon to stir it with. Despite its small size, it took me several minutes to drink it, perhaps as long as I would spend over a larger cup of coffee at a restaurant here. I think it was just something about the whole ritual, and the size, that led me to naturally slow down and enjoy it.

So now when I go to my local coffee shop, instead of asking for a "small" latte, which is served in something like a 16-ounce mug, I ask for two shots of espresso with a little steamed whole milk. I get it served in a small ceramic cup that the owner calls a demitasse, but it's really about 8 ounces, like an old-fashioned coffee cup. I find it a little bit bitter, but I am happy to put a little sugar in it. After all, when the portion size is small, I feel that I can afford a little sweetness along with it.

And when I find myself thinking, "That was good, I'd like another," I remind myself that the second cup never tastes as good. Old habits die hard, but enjoying the one small cup of coffee makes me feel a little bit like I'm still a tourist. Next thing you know, I'll be visiting our local museums and historic sites.

A little Belgian garden

We're visiting my sister in Brussels, Belgium, actually in the adjacent town of Kraainem (suburb, I suppose, except it's nothing like what we think of as a suburb in the Twin Cities). It's kind of near the airport and the beltway, although neither of these seems to impose on this idyllic place, really -- not to us, anyway, as accustomed as we are to living near the airport and the crosstown freeway ourselves. In fact, we were sitting in her little courtyard garden this evening, and at one point I did have to pause while an airplane few over, and we kind of had to laugh: "Feels just like home!" I said.

But this little courtyard garden (and the cobblestone street on the other side of it) is very unlike our grassy backyard: it is all pavement like a patio, and one wall is covered in the kind of ivy we grow as a houseplant back home, while another has a wisteria vine clambering over it. It's very sunny in the morning and early afternoon, but cool and shady later in the day. The little stone statuary on the ivy wall is a nonfunctioning fountain (Penny says it leaks), which looks charming enough without water. It would look fabulous as a planter, though. Maybe I'll suggest it. Her housekeeper apparently takes care of the garden, insomuch as she trims the wisteria so it doesn't cover her doorway! So maybe her housekeeper would like the idea of planting the basin.

I, on the other hand, will try to resist the temptation to do this for her while we are here! (I wouldn't know where to get the dirt or the plants, anyway.) I am certain I can be quite content just enjoying the little courtyard when we are relaxing after a day of exploring.

Friendly bouquet

Yesterday I stopped over at my friend Judy Anderson's house to look over her pottery, which she had on display in her front yard in an art-in-the-garden sale. I enjoyed touring her garden as much as looking at all the beautiful pottery. You can see some of it for yourself at her Web site, Dragonfly Guild.

Craig selected a mug for his morning chai -- when we were up at the cabin a couple of weeks ago, he had complained that none of the mugs in the cupboard were quite right for his tea (they were all a little on the small side, I guess), so I had suggested we buy him a handmade mug to keep up there. We looked a little when we were in Bemidji, which is quite an arty town, but he didn't see anything that struck his fancy. (And we didn't get to the gallery that our friend had recommended because it was surrounded by torn-up streets. What was it called, Terry? Wild Cat, or something like that. I want to visit that one next time we go up north.)

So when Judy announced her sale, I said, let's go. Craig didn't have much trouble selecting a mug, but I had a time looking over all the beautiful vases. I settled on this one for it's medium size, and I thought the black glaze would set off a bouquet of colorful flowers nicely -- although then I went and put all-white hudrangeas in it!

Bird gardeners

Earlier this summer, I had reserved a spot in my garden for pole beans, and was waiting to plant them until I found some suitable poles. In the meantime, I saw sparrows pecking around in the bare soil, and I figured they were finding bugs or weed seeds or something to eat. Then, about a week or two later, sunflowers started sprouting in the garden! There are plenty of sunflower seeds in our bird feeder, and there are sunflowers sprouting under the feeder, which is usual, and not surprising, but I didn't expect the birds to actually carry the seeds the 15 feet or so to the garden and plant them there!

I thought about planting the beans anyway and letting them climb up the sunflower stems, but bean vines can get pretty heavy and I didn't want to topple the sunflowers, so I just resigned myself to growing sunflowers in this part of the garden instead. Beans are cheap at the farmers' market this time of year anyway, and the sunflowers are such a delight in the middle of the garden.

This is the first one to open, and as you can see, a fat bumblebee is enjoying the fruits (or pollen, more like) of the birds' efforts! And, of course, the bumblebee is returning the favor, since her foraging will pollinate the flowers and allow them to make seeds for the birds. I'm happy to just be the spectator to it all!

Good Vibrations

My potato plants have blossoms, and I was amazed at what pretty flowers they are. I don't remember potato blossoms in quite this color before. Then, when I went out to photograph them, I discovered a bumblebee busily flitting from blossom to blossom, doing her pollination thing.

I know that bumblebees like this one perform a special service for certain types of plants, called "buzz pollination," but I didn't understand quite what that was until recently, when I interviewed an entomologist for the fall issue of MOQ. I wanted to know more about bumblebees in the city, and specifically what we might look for when observing bees in the fall.

She (Elaine Evans) explained that certain flowers, like potato and tomato blossoms (closely related plants, by the way), have this cone-shaped center that contains the pollen. In order to get the pollen out, bumblebees grab hold of the cone with their mandibles and then vibrate their wing muscles without actually moving their wings, so that their whole body vibrates, and in so doing, manage to shake loose the pollen inside the cone. From the bees' point of view, they get the protein-rich pollen to eat, an important part of their diet. But it has the added benefit, from the plants' perspective, of getting that pollen out and onto parts of the bee's fuzzy body, which provides a way for that pollen to mix with the pollen from other potato blossoms, thus allowing seed formation to happen.

While we humans don't really need this to happen with potatoes, because we eat the roots, not the fruits, for other plants with these pollen cones -- tomatoes being the most notable example -- this is such a valuable service that commercial tomato growers actually purchase or "rent" hives of bumblebees to ensure that their plants get pollinated and they get a good crop as a result.

Honeybees don't perform this particular service -- buzz pollination -- so the peculiar shimmy of the busy bumblebee is especially important to growers of tomatoes and any other plants with their pollen trapped inside these floral cones.

It was fun watching this bumblebee grabbing hold of the cone at the center of the flowers and doing the shimmy, then moving on to the next blossom.

Garden multitasking

Yesterday I was rinsing out and refilling the birdbath in the backyard, and thought I should probably water my one-year-old cotoneaster hedge, which I planted as bareroot stock last summer. It also needed weeding, but I didn't think I had time to do that too. I don't have a sprinkler that will cover a long narrow strip like this hedge, so I started to just stand and water it with the hose, one little shrub at a time, thinking that would be better than nothing and I could do it fairly quickly.

Pretty soon I noticed that some of the leaves looked kind of chewed, so I examined them more closely with my left hand while holding the hose with my right. Not finding any obvious infestation, I started to use the hose, to which I had attached a spray nozzle, to rinse the leaves, paying special attention to any that were curled or chewed, rubbing my thumb over the undersides of leaves to scrape off any aphids that may have taken up residence there. I figured I could do this and water them at the same time.

Then I thought, well, as long as I'm doing this, and the ground is getting softened by the water, I may as well pull up the weeds too. After about a half an hour, I had watered, weeded, and debugged (more or less, as far as I could tell), the whole hedge. The weeding, in particular, I had been putting off for weeks, and it took just a half an hour -- while getting the watering and pest patrol taken care of at the same time.

I always seem to get the most done when I am trying to do less!

A Fond Farewell

Mom's all moved, and her new place is swell -- a nice roomy apartment with oak woodwork and loads of closet space (I'm jealous) and a sweet little patio with a southeastern exposure. I'll have to get her a nice patio tomato plant for Mother's day.

And I thought it was auspicious that the magnolia tree at the old house, the one we planted in the spring of 2003 in memory of my dad, was blooming so prettily on the day she moved out. It often blooms earlier, in April -- even as early as April 11, my dad's birthday, which is why I chose that particular tree. But here it was at its peak on May Day, as though it were bidding Mom a fond farewell and wishing her the best. And what a beautiful moving day we had -- sunny and mild, with a high of about 60 degrees.